South San Francisco Ferry Terminal Design
From a plugged-in tipster regarding the newly unveiled design for the South San Francisco Ferry Terminal at Oyster Point: “Think 10 more of these terminals. Everyone! Out of your cars — on to the water! Where else would this make sense but in water-accessible Bay Area? We could be on to something.”
Ferry terminal to be finished in early 2009 [Examiner]

25 thoughts on “And Of Course, How Might It Affect Property Values Around The Bay?”
  1. There are jobs near here but to really have a ferry network you need to have a lot of more housing and jobs near the terminals and we don’t

  2. This is great news for all those commuting to Biotech Bay – Genentech, Amgen, Elan, Exelixis, etc. The ferry terminal would make it so much easier for a lot of East Bay commuters.

  3. Zig is right. Ferries are a popular idea, but in reality they can’t serve very many people, aren’t near where people actually live, and are extremely expensive to run (per passenger). Unfortunately, politics, rather than rationality, is promising to vastly increase our ferry fleet, on the somewhat specious argument that it is for disaster planning. Buses and rail networks are the best way to get lots of people around.

  4. Put another terminal in Mission Bay, provide service from Jack London to Mission Bay to Oyster Bay, and watch all the biotech workers ditch SF for Oakland and the East Bay.

  5. Michael has got a great idea. That would make for the ideal Bay Area ferry network. Would be fun “just for the ride” too. 😀

  6. Jack London Square area is moving in the right direction, but still there is very little residential development near the east bay shoreline. Meaning you need to drive your car to a ferry terminal. Meaning that you’re not saving time, money, or reducing your “carbon footprint” by taking the ferry. There is a reason that current ferry ridership is virtually insignificant compared to other transit.

  7. All of the current fads are included in this project. The “host of plasma televisions” that blurb information to you as you go towards your sleek “enviromentally friendly vessel”. The problem is how to get to Jack London Square without using a car. This would serve a very small population compared to other solutions.

  8. Water taxi potential. Marin, Marina, Wharf, Embarc, Emeryville, Berk, Oak, Alameda, Oakland Airport, Treasure Is, S. SF, SFO! Redwd City, Mtn View (is that on the water?), other…..
    All starts to make $ sense when you have enuf routes and terminals.
    I commuted for 4 yrs to Alameda via ferry from Embarc. – Nothing like it.

  9. “The South San Francisco City Council could vote tonight on the newly unveiled final design for the proposed $46 million ferry terminal, which has been projected to serve 700 daily riders and has been called by officials from Oyster Point’s biotech firms as a “great alternative” to other modes of public transit.”
    700 daily riders? “Very small population” is the understatement of the day considering the $46M investment. But it will benefit the area around Jack London and pull buyers out of San Francisco.

  10. I am a former employee of genentech. they put a lot of money and a lot of lobbying behind this project. The primary reason is that it is very difficut to recruit talent from the east coast because of the price of living and the relative small size of homes in SF and the peninsula. Because genentech has gotten so big, the best place to recruit talent is from large pharma companies in NJ and PA. Compared to their perceived Quality of Life, most cannot fathom moving to SF even for stock option and a 50% pay increase and lucrative housing allowance, because the hosing costs 400% more here. That is, except in the east bay. Most of the talent that has been recruited below the executive level has chosen to buy in the east bay, but still a lot of people don’t want to do that because of the commute.
    genentech’s solution: build a ferry to east bay. voila!

  11. I worked for a decade at Oyster Point
    Genentech has a pretty effective shuttle program from Bart to the campus
    I can’t imagine many people other than a few in Alameda will take this

  12. Thanks for this information Spencer. I think Genentech’s situation with trying to recruit employees to move to the Bay Area is very similar to my own firm. Contrary to many who beat the drum that “everyone wants to live here”, everyone does not wish to live in our “dream city”. When we can finally destroy the myth that this is the most desirable piece of land in America, then maybe we can begin to address the many problems that are holding us back. From transportation issues such as this, to crime, homelessness and the current condition of Muni and our dirty streets, we have a lot of work to do. I have taken people to Tahoe, Napa, Pebble Beach and all of our beauty spots, but at the end of the tour, it all came back to the cost of housing here and they would end up saying no to even the most generous compensation. The only people we can get to move here tend to be single, with no desire of having children or a family. I guess if the ferry helps this area it is not so bad for long term growth.

  13. Ok, someone pointed out the $46M pricetag already as well as the 700 daily anticipated riders.
    Did some quick math and assuming they charged $10-20 per day that would result in about $1.68M-3.36M per year if you figure that there are 48 work weeks and folks are commuting 5 days per week. Not counting maintenance, upgrades, and costs associated with actually running the services it would take 15-30 years to pull in the $46M to pay for this. Yikes!
    I suppose some would argue its a good thing for taxes to subsidize transportation, but shouldn’t we be spending the money on transportation that will see more usage?!

  14. If Genentech wants to attract more workers, they can PAY THEM MORE. A WHOLE LOT MORE. Rather than lobby hard to get my tax dollars to fund (at ~$50K/rider) a stupid marina terminal. $50K per rider would buy each commuter a boat. I’m sick and tired of Genentech (and Microsoft back in the day) whining about “the lack of qualified workers.” There’s not lack of scientists who’d love to work for Genentech–they just don’t want to work in an exceedingly expensive area for $44,000/year, which is what Genentech pays a post-doctoral fellow. Yes, this is a guy with a PhD. $44K/year. I can make more in Milwaukee managing a Burger King. Yeah, their full-time scientists make more, but still, put up or shut up, Genentech.
    Retarded. Clearly it’s better from Genentech’s perspective to get schlubs like me to subsidize their recruiting, but pardon me, go **** off, I don’t want to subsidize your wages with my taxes.

  15. David-It’s hard to believe how little post docs get paid. In fact my friends recruiting for entry level QC people at GNE would pay that.
    I worked for GNE for eight or so years in various jobs that basically required a college degree from middling State and made more than 2x the salary you posted here by the time I left. Then I worked on a contract and made much more.
    Apparently science doesn’t pay?!! It must be a supply/demand issue for those coveted positions. Grind through 9-10 hours per day in a cubicle and you can do pretty well there.
    And to answer your question, rather than paying more GNE is moving much of their operations to places like Kentucky and Oregon where people make $15 per hour.
    Back to the Ferry thing; GNE had a very good shuttle program from Bart. They may be lobbying for this Ferry terminal as Spencer states but few people are going to take this because it is not convenient.
    Lastly, Spencer I think I now know who you are 🙂

  16. Not that it’s a huge improvement, but Genentech postdocs start at 49K and move up 3K per year. http://www.gene.com/gene/research/postdoctoral/benefits.html
    The vast majority of Genentech postdocs are from outside the US, and are willing to work for cheap to have the opportunity to come to the US. Very few live more than 10 miles away owing to the long hours most spend in the lab- when you’re working 70-80 hrs/week, there’s no time for an hour commute each way.
    Zig’s right, science doesn’t pay.

  17. So much for this helping the Bay Area with high paying jobs. It brings back the overall question of where is the real money being generated from in this region? Despite our wanting to wish it was from Technology and Biotech jobs, the real maker of jobs in the immediate San Francisco area is tourism!, followed by government services, education, and healthcare. We are not really that much different from other major urban areas.

  18. i hate to rain on the science parade, but the average person in the genentech sales and marketing organization get paid over $125K and they are recruiting these folks from big pharma in the east.
    two points;
    sadly, sales and marketing get paid more than scientists
    sadly, $125k salary is still not enough to buy a property in sf.

  19. Boy, you crybabies — 125k/year is fine in SF if you save for a few years like normal people have to. Starting from zero, you can have your 10% downpayment on someplace nice in five years, less if your spouse works too.

    Of course, most mid-career folks are not starting from zero, although you have to hope your bigshot job does not get outsourced to somewhere cheaper in the US or abroad while you are servicing the nut.

    What’s the tragedy? If SF is so wonderful, pay up! If you want to see horror, take a look at what all those folks on the UCSF campus make. Genentech’s postdoc salaries look lavish by comparison. Hope there will be rentals around the new campus 🙂

  20. Ok, 49K. Amazing. And they have the gall to complain about a “lack of qualified scientists.”
    Yes, full-time scientists make more, but they don’t make $125K like the commercial folks. Last time I checked, it was more in the 90K range, but they might have jacked it up 10% since then. Sales guys always make more. Not that I’m complaining; thankfully I’m not working on the science side of science anymore. My point is simply that I don’t want to subsidize DNA’s recruiting by paying $50K/commuter on a ferry. If DNA put that into salaries, they’d have an easier time recruiting.
    As for you Dub dub…perhaps you don’t realize that these guys are making $49K/year (if a post-doc) to $90K/year (if a scientist) when they’re 30-35 years old, after spending 9-15 years post-college making next to nothing as a grad student/first post-doc. So yeah, they’re starting from ZERO, since they’re not really “mid-career.” Just approaching middle age.
    Now you’re talking about saving for another 5 years after that to get a pissant 10% down payment. I’d also point out that you can only do that if you don’t have kids, and like it or not, the vast majority of couples (most people are married/coupled up in their 30’s) want to have kids.
    If you start working a real job when you’re 22, plug away until you’re 30 as a single dude, moving up to $100K, you can save some real $$ and then get married, etc.
    When you’re making nothing as a grad student until you’re 28, still making nothing at your first post-doc until you’re 31, and then you finally land a second post-doc at DNA (or any other biotech–DNA’s actually pays the best) until you’re 33 (making 49K/year, the most you’ve made to date) AND THEN you finally bump up to 90K, you can see the conundrum. Especially if you have/want kids.
    No, science doesn’t pay, and that’s why all these science/engineering jobs are filled by foreigners.

  21. No, the jobs never came from biotech certainly. Tech is still a decently large employer, but just to compare–Google’s been around for what 8-9 years? And it has 15,000 employees. Genentech has been around for 31 years and has…10,000 employees. I’d put my money on tech always having way more employees than biotech and always will. That’s why I laugh when other areas of the country want to attract “thousands” of “high-paying” biotech jobs. There aren’t “thousands” of jobs to be incrementally added anywhere in a timeframe less than 5 years. And the only reason the jobs are “high paying” is because the wage is a lower-middle class wage in the 3 areas of the country where there is the biotech industry (here, San Diego and Boston). And dub dub, $100-$150K here buys you exactly that–a lower middle class lifestyle if you have a family (i.e. a crappy 50-100 year old house, crappy schools, unless you pay through the nose for private schools, and a crappy commute). If you’re single, it’s great. Otherwise, not so much.

  22. “…perhaps you don’t realize that these guys are making $49K/year (if a post-doc) to $90K/year (if a scientist) when they’re 30-35 years old” [more complaining deleted].

    Who cares? Nobody is forcing these folks to work these jobs.

    When I got my PhD in the mid-90’s (not in life sciences), that’s exactly what I was faced with: cr*ppy transient postdocs (I was not good enough for tenure-track), or stay here and try to do something else with my life. Easy choice, despite challenges.

    The word “postdoc” conjures a noble Einstein-like figure, but by age 35-40 anyone good has tenure/tenure-track, or is running a lab, in either academia or corporateland where the pay is much better. A UCSF PI I know gets substantial “consulting fees” from industry to supplement an admittedly meager salary, and this is common practice. Several life-science professors are also partners in biotech VC firms (it’s almost a prerequisite).

    Forced to choose, I prefer merit to elitism: if a washed-up 35 year old postdoc “deserves” to afford to buy housing in the most expensive place in the country, then so do all the people without PhD’s. What’s so bad about renting? Did SF pass a law banning renters with children?

    What is wrong with you people (rhetorical)?

  23. You’re right, no once should care that these people are working McScience jobs. I don’t; that’s why I’m not working at the bench after I got my (life science) PhD. It was abundantly clear that I’d never make a decent living.
    What I’m saying is that 1) these people don’t make a lot of money, 2) it’s ridiculous that I should subsidize DNA’s recruiting efforts by paying for this marina (at $50K/commuter)–DNA should pay them that in salary and 3) while the wages may seem decent for your typical biotech worker, they’re a lot closer to the guy’s career peak; when you take that into account, it’s not all that great.
    As another side, I’m reiterating that $125K here for the “breadwinner” is a lower-middle class income if you have a family. If you think that $125K here is some kind of great living, you’re either 1) single, 2) have no clue, or 3) since you mentioned the ‘mid-90’s, you got your house at the precise bottom of the last R.E. cycle (good on you for that lucky timing).

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